Utah Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System : Local Health District Report, 1995-1998
Creator
Utah. Division of Community and Family Health Services; Utah. Bureau of Health Education; Utah. Bureau of Chronic Disease; Utah. Center for Health Data; Utah. Office of Public Health Assessment;
Subject.MeSH
Activities of Daily Living; Alcohol Drinking; Body Mass Index; Community Health Planning; Community Health Services; Diet; Epidemiology; Exercise; Food Habits; Fruit; Health Behavior; Health Education; Health Planning; Health Policy; Health Promotion; Health Status Indicators; Life Style; Mass Screening; Nutrition; Nutrition Policy; Obesity; Preventive Health Services; Preventive Medicine; Public Health; Risk Factors; Risk Reduction Behavior; Small-Area Analysis; Smoking; Statistics; Utah; Vegetables;
Subject.LCSH
Drinking of alcoholic beverages; Community health services; Diet; Epidemiology; Food habits; Fruit; Health behavior; Health education; Health planning; Medical policy; Health promotion; Health status indicators; Lifestyles; Medical screening; Nutrition; Nutrition policy; Obesity; Preventive health services; Medicine, Preventive; Public health; Smoking; Statistics; Vegetables;
Description
Overall, the Utah population is relatively young and healthy. Its death rate is much lower than that for the U.S.
(all cause deaths), and it has especially low rates of death for lung cancer and heart disease. These low rates
are at least partially attributable to Utah’s healthy lifestyles, such as low smoking rates and high rates of participation
in physical activity. Utah is able to assess the prevalence of behavioral and lifestyle risk factors for
disease using the CDC-sponsored Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) telephone survey.
From this ongoing survey, we also know that Utahns have relatively good insurance coverage and low rates of
obesity compared with other states in the U.S. There is room for improvement, however. Utahns report only
average physical and mental health (# days health not good), average consumption of fruits and vegetables,
and our utilization of mammography and pap smear is lower than the U.S. median.
The BRFSS produces local health district estimates every 3 years for most survey items. All BRFSS
data are collected from adults, and are weighted to be representative of the adult population in the state and in
each of Utah’s 12 local health districts.
